TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & small

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Pappnaas
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Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 11:23 am
Location: Germany

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by Pappnaas » Thu Aug 08, 2013 11:57 pm

justhahaha wrote:Ok got your point pappnaas , anyways can u tell me the difference between underclocking and undervolting a locked cpu vs an unlocked cpu ?
Sry, i can't. Please someone from here might help us out.

james
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 9:46 am

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by james » Fri Aug 09, 2013 2:34 am

having an unlocked processor makes NO difference when Undervolting / underclocking. an unlocked processor allows you in increase the multiplier above the stock maximum, for overclocking. So unless you plan to overclock (not recommended for your application!!!) just go for a normal (Non-K) CPU.

BIOS is what matters here, some don't allow underclocking / undervolting. ASUS allows both (Works for me anyway, not sure about other manufacturers.

To give an idea of what a 160W Picopsu can handle, have a look here (I'll update it over the next few days, but I have the HD7750 in my build since the last update. Just not fanless)

Another thing to bear in mind is the chipset heatsink on your chosen mobo. Again, they are designed for cases with airflow, so without will probably get a bit hot (Mine hit 60+ degrees C without airflow) Have a look at uprated chipset coolers.

justhahaha
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Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:13 pm

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by justhahaha » Fri Aug 09, 2013 3:23 am

Hii james ,

Ya I understand and I am never going to overclock the cpu as I dont feel the need to overlock the cpu for my application , I may just overlock the integrated gpu to test if my softwares run fine with an overclocked hd4600 in the i7 haswell , if its a success then probably I will not have to put a dedicated hd 7750 in my build. In such a case the 160w picopsu can run efficiently and for some good news for htpc builders , the streamcom 180w picopsu would be ready by october.

Does having a locked cpu make it difficult compared to an unlocked cpu to overclock and underclock ?

boost
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Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by boost » Fri Aug 09, 2013 3:28 am

justhahaha wrote:I plan to underclock and undervolt not too much but just enough so that my 160w picopsu can handle the stuff at 90% of its capacity and while maintaining the stability of the system . What i plan to do is to buy the parts besides the graphics card and then as you suggested i will try out the integrated graphics and see if it can handle my software and then take a decision on buying an additional discrete card .
With modern hardware most of the underclocking and undervolting is automatically done for you. A Haswell CPU can lower the clock speed to 800MHz in idle down from 3.4GHz and reduce the voltage which reduces power consumption. Part of the power delivery system has moved from the board onto the Haswell CPU so adjusting the voltage works faster and more efficient. You can undervolt the CPU around 10% or so, but the difference in idle will be close tho what you can measure at home, under load 3W-4W maybe.
Graphic cards clock down from 800Mhz or more to 300MHz and also downclock their RAM in idle. In normal use your system should use ~60W if not less, idle maybe 30W-40W.With the right setup ATI cards can go into long idle mode and use next to no power.
Pappnaas wrote:
justhahaha wrote:Ok got your point pappnaas , anyways can u tell me the difference between underclocking and undervolting a locked cpu vs an unlocked cpu ?
Sry, i can't. Please someone from here might help us out.
Unlocked CPUs allow for raising the clock speed beyond the factory spec, nothing more.
Undervolting was a thing before CPUs could adjust their clockspeed based on load.
justhahaha wrote:hey boost,

1) my build total wattage comes to 152w after i add the cpu 45w tdp to the pcpartpicker list:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1oEmp

i was wondering how did you get 120w?
I read reviews that measure power consumption.
The CPU calculator can never be 100% accurate because they could never keep up a database of all the parts accurately. It also overspecs because most calculators are run by PSU sellers. A bigger PSU costs more. Another problem is people cheaping out on PSUs. Cheap PSU often cannot deliver the power they promise. On this forum you will get recommendations for quality PSUs such as Seasonic, their PSUs can deliver more than indicated and have a fail safe so they shut down if the load is too high.

The Nofan CR95 works totally fanless and the graphic card works fanless, too.
Using the CR95 requres so much space that you need an mATX mainboard, though. and not just anyone, the cooelr is so big it blocks the slot closest to the CPU. The Intel DH87RL is the only mATX board with the graphic card slot one over from the first. Intel boards are very frugal with power.
A fanless system with these components would work well inthe SilverStone Fortress FT03.

justhahaha
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:13 pm

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by justhahaha » Fri Aug 09, 2013 4:33 am

Hii boost,

I need to underclock and undervolt when the cpu is under load so it does not stress the picopsu and since I am experimenting with going caseless so by underclocking and undervolting under stress I can maintain temperature , the i7 haswell 4770s can handle upto 72°c .

I understand the nofan cooler is large and hence I was thinking about something like silverstone heligon he02 which shouldn't have any difficulty cooling 65w i7 on an mini itx mb .

boost
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Location: de_DE

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by boost » Fri Aug 09, 2013 5:52 am

Why a XXXXS CPU is effectively useless:
Let's compare the 4770S and the 4770. The K has a base clock of 3.1GHz and 3.9GHz boost for the CPU and 350-1250MHz for the GPU. The non-S has 3.5GHz and 3.9GHz boost, GPU is the same.
The S has a TDP of 45W and a Tcase of 71°C the non-S of 72°C, let's call it even.
The S will use at most 45W for the CPU and GPU combined, the non-S 77W. If they exceed the power limit the will throttle the speed reducing voltage and temperature. They will do the same if they exceed the temperature target (actually Tjuncture max).
If you load both the CPU and GPU the S will throttle faster than the non-S.
How do you load both to the max simultaniously? With torture tests only.
With normal applications, even 3D, you will not put 100% load on both the CPU and GPU. So internally the headroom for temperature and power that isn't used can be dynamically assigned where it's needed increasing the clockspeed of one or more of the CPU cores up to 3.9GHz or the GPU up to 1.25GHz.
If you don't run torture tests you will not see 77W power draw from the non-S CPU. The only difference is the headroom for dynamically increased clock speed where needed. In real life the difference will be from 0-6W between S and non-S in CPU intensive tasks and 0-12W in CPU and GPU intensive tasks which barely registers in temperature if you use a good CPU cooler. This dynamic explains why the Haswell Xeon with out GPU has a TDP only 4W lower than the one with GPU, it can use all the power for the CPU and clock more of the cores higher in the power envelope.
If the PSU can deliver enough power the the processor (the Pico 160W can) than in idle you get the same power draw with the non-S CPU. But when you need the computing power the most the non-S can dynamically give you more computing power for only a slight increase in power and heat.
S CPU are for situations where you can't use a big cooler and you want to guarantee a minium speed. Throttling also ocurs when the maximum temperature is exceed. In SPCR's test of the CR95C worked much better than the Heligon. That's why it's recommended by others and myself.

justhahaha
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:13 pm

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by justhahaha » Fri Aug 09, 2013 6:12 am

hii boost,

Thank u so much as that really reduces the confusion for my build , now the only missing piece is to find a totally fanless heatsink for my mini itx board with the 1150 socket .

Do u have any suggestions on which fanless heatsink would do the work size wise ? keeping in mind i am experimenting with caseless build to put up some performance and temperature numbers for the users here

boost
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Location: de_DE

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by boost » Fri Aug 09, 2013 6:48 am

Why a size restriction, when there is no case?
You need a large surface area to dissipate the heat.
My recommendations are the same as they were.
NoFan CR95C without a fan or Thermalright Hr-02 Macho might work without a fan, but it comes with a silent one you can turn down to an inaudible level, if fanless doesn't work.
Or a fanless heatpipe case like the Streacom FC8 Evo Fanless if you don't need a discrete graphics card.

justhahaha
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:13 pm

Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by justhahaha » Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:07 am

hii boost,

I intend to purchase the streamcom db4 case when it releases in december and thats the reason i want to stick to the mini-itx form factor and i personally too wanna go as small and compact as possible .

Vicotnik
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Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by Vicotnik » Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:53 am

justhahaha wrote:In such a case the 160w picopsu can run efficiently and for some good news for htpc builders , the streamcom 180w picopsu would be ready by october.
Since most of the juice is pulled from the +12v rail, and the picoPSU only passes that one through from the brick, the "rating" of the picoPSU doesn't matter that much. My favorite picoPSU is the 90-XLP, one of those (with a fat Dell DA-2) powers my "gaming" system with an HD 7750.

justhahaha
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Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by justhahaha » Sat Aug 10, 2013 7:29 pm

can the 256gb msata ssd be partitioned ?
are there any disadvantages of using msata as the only drive in the build ?

Vicotnik
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Re: TOTALLY fanless, caseless, wireless, pretty powerful & s

Post by Vicotnik » Sun Aug 11, 2013 12:18 am

justhahaha wrote:can the 256gb msata ssd be partitioned ?
are there any disadvantages of using msata as the only drive in the build ?
Yes, an SSD can be partitioned, just a HDD.
No, no disadvantages to using msata. Usually not the cheapest option though.

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